Customer Reviews

Roughing It

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I rent many DVDs for the family to watch. It's hard to find movies that will be entertaining for the kids and yet keep the interest of the adults. This is one of them. Very beautiful movie - everyone loved it. You'll laugh like crazy but the movie, like Twain himself, is often profound.

After completing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Celebrated Frog of Caleveras County, I decided to show Roughing to my 8th grade students. Some students had enjoyed Tom Sawyer, but there were quite a few that found the vocabulary very difficult. Many of them were apprehensive, and thought it might be BORING, but the classroom was silent during this film. I ask students after they have watched a film if they would recommend showing to future students. All of them said they would watch it again, at home, if they had the movie.
Roughing It demonstrates the sense of adventure that we expect in the old west, but with the intellectual input of Twain. This film can be enjoyed by people from age 6 to 60 and beyond.

This is a great family film. James Garner is wonderful as Mark Twain. The stories he tells about his adventures before he became Mark Twain are fantastic. This movie shows Mark Twain's brilliance as a master story teller. We have been recommending this movie to everyone who will listen to us about it. Definitely a must have for the family video collection.

Roughing it is a great movie about the interesting life of Mark Twain. It is extrememly accurate and is well made. Roughing it is an entertaining made-for-tv movie. You will learn a great deal and will enjoy it while doing so. The writer of this film (Steven H. Berman) was nominated for his brilliant screenplay by the Writers Guild of America. James Garner is great along with his all-star cast. Highly recommended!

James Garner shines in this Hallmark rendition of Mark Twain's "Roughing It." Hallmark's take strays far from the letter of the book; but the spirit of the tale comes through very well. And while Garner may shine brightest, the rest of the cast is uniformly excellent. Even minor characters are well cast, and the entire ensemble raise this movie far above most.
Like Twain's book, the movie is always perfectly happy to wander right down the path of exaggeration to the borders of fantasy and have a picnic. Yet it develops the characters believably and fully, and draws astute observations on the human condition all the while; again, very much in the manner of Mark Twain. I rate it a full Five Stars, and recommend it highly.

This is a wonderful dvd. The story line is great and if you like Mark Twain you will definately like this movie. We saw it once on tv and then we had to be able to own the dvd so we can watch it whenever we want. This movie is for young teenagers and older people. The actors are great and the movie is both funny and intriguing. A must have film....James Garner does a wonderful portrail of Mark Twain...

I saw this on TV and then bought it for my mother who's a 3rd grade teacher. The students loved it! Great for all ages. I've read the book and the movie probably only covers about 10% of the stuff that happens but they do a great job of making a good story with a moral message. A+! :)

Roughing it is a great depiction of how Mark Twain got his start in writing and about his earlier life. It is played very well by James Garner and the other actors. A great picture for younger people to see.

...several scenes are highly unbelievable. Don't get me wrong, the movie has many delightful scenes as my wife would put it, but the following ones were a bit over the top.

I don't consider these spoilers, just wanted to list a few examples.

* A poker game so serious that the building they are playing in becomes inundated with floodwaters from a storm, so bad that the very table they are playing on begins to float...all while they continue to play???
* While getting lost in a snow storm, they end up hunkering around a tree all night, giving in to impending doom. While I realize that snow will act as a blanket from the freezing weather, thus probably saving their lives, I cannot believe that the very morning sun would melt all the snow around them before they awake???
* Three men can pull a wagon, uphill, and full of their equipment but two horses could not???

Maybe I'm being a little nitpickitty, but if you have over two-and-a-half hours to spend then what they heck, give it a try. Like I mentioned before it does have some bright spots too.